Army’s Problem-- Yours Too

Younger officers are leaving the Army in alarming numbers, and surveys indicate the exodus is unlikely to be staunched soon. A decade ago, 52% of lieutenants and captains said they planned to serve in the Army until retirement. This year only 36% regard the Army as a probable career. Some of the reasons for this high attrition rate are suggested in a survey taken at the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan. Those reasons won’t be welcomed by the Army’s senior brass, Clinton administration policymakers or a Congress that stints the needs of service personnel, though it is ever ready to spend on dubious military hardware.

As reported this week by the Washington Post, the Ft. Leavenworth survey identified a lack of trust in military commanders, low morale resulting from frequent overseas rotations, widely disliked peacekeeping missions and family problems arising from often inadequate housing and medical care. Participating in the study were 760 midcareer majors and lieutenant colonels, representing the most likely candidates for future Army leadership. Most of these officers are in close touch with the junior officers who are opting out of the service in high numbers.

The Ft. Leavenworth survey is only a sampling of opinion. Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki and Army Secretary Louis Caldera want more. They have ordered two study panels consisting of both military and civilian personnel to determine why, for example, more than 10% of Army captains have quit in each of the last three years and how retention can be improved. The panels are to report by August.

It’s essential that the panels be instructed to report candidly and not shade their findings. It’s not up to junior officers to set national policy or dictate to the top levels of command. But if there is in fact broad, morale-sapping dissatisfaction with senior commanders and too-frequent overseas deployments--deployments have increased 300% since the end of the Cold War--then policymakers and military leaders had better know. If, as some in the Ft. Leavenworth survey allege, the truth isn’t being told about combat readiness, better to expose weaknesses now than have them revealed in some future disaster.

With all-volunteer armed forces, Americans depend on the few to defend the many. When the few become even fewer through shrinking retention rates and recruiting shortfalls, attention must be promptly paid. This is the country’s problem, not just the military’s.